Thursday, December 6, 2007
Mitt Romney gives us pause
Mitt Romney today said that he thinks the "separation of church and state" has gone too far in this country, to the extent that the "acknowledgment of God" is frowned upon, unwelcome. Well, because of the 90-10 rule, the "acknowledgment of god" is not anywhere near as frowned upon and unwelcome as the "acknowledgment of no-god." The fact that the great unwashed 90% of Americans claim to believe in god tends to ensure in practice that atheists have a lot of pressure on them to keep their heads down and shut up! (as Bill O'Reilly and his ilk love to say).
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Hi dad, when I got your email referring me to this link I was going to respond that I am a "closet atheist." It is a lot easier to keep my head down and shut up than deal with the believers' shock that such a thing as an atheist is in their midst. By the time you and mom had the church-going spell when I was a kid I had already "learned" that god does not exist.
ReplyDeleteI thought for awhile there that you and mom really did believe and I am actually relieved to know that you do not. :-)
And I am relieved to have my suspicion confirmed, that not only has your mother been atheistic longer than I have, but so have you too!...since even before our "church-going spell," when you were a kid!
ReplyDeleteKnow, though, that your mom and I haven't actually discussed this, explicitly. I mainly go by her strong aversion to church and her having changed the final word of the needlepoint on our bedroom wall:
Who plants a seed beneath the sod
And waits to see believes in DNA[!]
I love you, my dear daughter!
Dad
Ha, you might want to check with Mom because she made that needlepoint a LOOOOOOONG time ago. I was under the impression a few years back that she had become a believer, though she did not care for church. She said something to me along the lines of "as you become older the idea of God becomes more appealing."
ReplyDeleteI read a book about Darwin that explained that he was actually a Christian to begin with. After he came to understand the process of evolution, he could no longer reconcile the idea of the benevolent God he had believed in with the cruelty of evolution and so he came to the conclusion that there COULD NOT be a God. That is pretty much how I feel. I would rather not believe that there is actually some being responsible for all the cruelty and misery on this earth. Whereas believers take comfort in the fact that all this cruelty and misery is "all part of God's plan" and there will be some reward after death. Luckily for them, if they are wrong they'll never know. I guess if I am wrong I'll be hanging out in "hell" with you and Charles Darwin.
HA! Family insight (which I come across not through stalking but through your invitation, Moristotle, to take a look at the post.
ReplyDeleteThough you've given little detail about your wife's views, what you have said roughly dovetails with those of my own father, who has no use for religion and who is atheist or more likely agnostic and who is content to just live a decent life now (which he does) and who feels it will all come out in the wash someday.
Your wife: She said something to me along the lines of "as you become older the idea of God becomes more appealing." Yeah. My dad, too. Hedging his bets, he says humorously.
When he, a Catholic, wanted to marry my Mom, the priest agreed only on condition that she, a Protestant, convert (or at least submit to a Catholic wedding, I forget which one) That was the last time he set foot in the Catholic (or any other) church. I don't think his experience in WWII helped his faith either.
I read a book about Darwin that explained that he was actually a Christian to begin with. After he came to understand the process of evolution, he could no longer reconcile the idea of the benevolent God he had believed in with the cruelty of evolution and so he came to the conclusion that there COULD NOT be a God.
Yes, it is true. I wrote a couple of posts on it, though my conclusions differ from that of your daughter, but not 180 (hmmmm....there is no key for the "degree" sign). If you have the interest:
http://carriertom.typepad.com/sheep_and_goats/2006/07/charles_darwin_.html
and
http://carriertom.typepad.com/sheep_and_goats/2006/08/charles_darwin_.html
You might imagine that I would agree with Mitt. In fact, I'm happiest when the church & state walls remain as they are.
An interesting post, Moristotle. Good to keep in touch.
Hmmm. Those links don't connect as I hoped. do you know how to make them do it?
ReplyDeleteFind them in my "Evolution" category if you are interested.
Tom
Tom, as always, thanks for your comment! With blogger (blogspot), you can code links in comments using the standard <a> tag: to wit "<a href="[URL]">[text to identify the item linked to]</a>". Here are your two links, so rendered:
ReplyDeletefirst link
second link
Also, for special characters, you can use the standard HTML codes. For example, for degree sign: °. Rendered thus: "°" Here's where I usually get the codes http://www.tntluoma.com/sidebars/codes/.
But, to comment on your comment. The idea of god can appeal at any age, of course. It seems generally to be thought, though, that it appeals most to old people who, let's face it, start to dwell—some of them anyway—on their looming demise.
On a personal note, when my wife's father died, she seemed delighted at the circumstance that he was driving at the time, had a massive heart attack, and drove into the side of a church building. He too loathed churches and (perhaps—alas, I do not know) religion.
And, by the way, I've read at least one, if not both, of your Darwin posts. Thank you for them.
Dear my daughter, I so relate to your observing "all the cruelty and misery on this earth" and seriously doubting that a god could have authored it. I dwelled on this at length in recent months, at one point affirming that if a god did create the food chain (for example), then god was not the benevolent creator people fantasized. Or, as my friend Punkiemommie put it to me: If god is such an asshole, then screw god. [paraphrased]
ReplyDeleteAnd, for a while (while doing some "blogging metaphysics"), I made the intellectual mistake of assuming that there was an even probability that god did or didn't exist. That is, 50/50. Or, as I put it, "maximum uncertainty." But that was as empty an assumption as the assumption required for the ontological argument for the existence (or non-existence) of god.
When one looks at the evidence available, including the fact that the major Abrahamaic religions (and I'm willing to include Mormonism in this) contradict one another on the alleged facts, the probability that god exists is far outweighed by the probability that god doesn't. Agnostics might consider how they weigh the probabilities.
Dad
Also, while I agree with your overall assessment of Bullitt (from your movie list), one of my favorite movie scenes of all time (greatly exagerated in my mind's eye, no doubt) is the hero doing his week's shopping: Seven TV dinners. Does it even take ten seconds?
ReplyDeleteHa, yes, I know the scene! Ten seconds is about right. And, of course, not much more time than that to pop one into the microwave and remove it in a few minutes...except for those that you're supposed to stir midway, etc. But, if I remember the 'sixties correctly, Frank Bullitt couldn't have had a microwave...Of course, your cinematic point is that it takes the movie only about ten seconds to portray something memorably revealing about the character. He's got more important things to do with his time than to shop and cook healthily (or whatever).
ReplyDeleteI identify with that scene. I'm a lot like him in some respects. (though I drive more prudently)
ReplyDeleteFor example, I almost resent being given a choice of items from a menu. It requires too much deciphering. Just bring some food, I'll eat it.
Pop is sorta like that too, and we sometimes team up to tease my wife, who likes choosing, who asks plenty of questions, and who likes to get to the bottom of things.
Me: What do you do, Pop, when you can't find what you're looking for in the supermarket?
Pop: I walk up one aisle and down another. If I still don't see it, I forget about it!